Hmm, sounds a very bad call. But it shouldn't have got to Andy so much .

The very good thing is how he has generally so upped his level in these lasr 3 matches.

On to the dirt...

I agree it was a real shame that mentally Andy couldn't get over the umpire's mistake in the second set (especially in the games after he lost the break) but I really don't think any player would have won the game it happened in, it was such a bad call at such an important point against a player you cannot afford to give any free points to and at a point when Andy was looking really good to come through in the tiebreak.

On that note, I do think Andy was playing his best tennis again and for 11 games of the first set and the first 5 in the second I truly felt he could beat Djokovic today - if you'd offered that at the beginning of the week I think we'd all have taken it.

No, he was still grumbling on at the umpire in the middle of the second set. He really must learn to let these things go.

Further idly ruminating, to think Andy was two sets down to Verdasco in the Wimbledon QF.

What followed that day and in the next few days changed his life and basically made him a legend, OK a GB legend.

That's a bit different from having lost that match, and ( if everything else had followed the same course ) have made no mandatory SFs in the last year and about to be WR 10, behind Isner and Raonic, and just shead of Gasquet and Tsonga.

OK, OK, I know winning Wimbledon undoubtably effected him, particularly during the following North American hard court masters events and the US Open, so there's a causal effect ( making it all maybe a bit bunkum ), but just saying....

Thete is always a certain ( usually small ) element of luck in sport and many othrr things. it is appreciating the balance and conting the controllables to take luck as much ss possible out of the equation, but accepting it when it comes to your aid.

For instance Novak got a lucky call against Andy yesterday from a dopey umpire. But he won mainly because he has made himself a great tennis player and to some degree Andy lost focus. These are controllables. Andy puts that point behind him immediately and that elemebt of luck wpuld not have had such an effect.

Now back to that Wimbledon QF. Yes, life became so different for Andy with himpulling rpund that match and the subsequent events. But how much of that was really luck ? Remarkable how often he's been "lucky" enough to do so. Wel, I'd sughest not so remarkable when you have some history of comimg back from two sets down. That is clearly not unconnected tp Andy's compdtitive spirit and it certainly owes a huge deal to the fitness work he puts in.

If Verdasco had kept on at a great level and Andy hadn't again upped his game and shown resilience he could have been out. That clearly is rather more than just luc but hey it cpuld have happened. I'd tbough suggest that the fact that it didn't owed s great deal tp the controllsbles and was no great surprise.

Indeed keep putting in all that work, which help get you to later stages of championships and there is a fair chance you might end a champion. You might even get a lucky break in a final, an opponent could get injured, but the more you fo to get yourself in that position in the first place then at some stage ypu will get some good luck when it really matters.

Of course luck can and does often does play a part, but so do so many other controllable factors. That is largely why the tried an tested "big" teams and players wi. More often than not.

Hey ho, I did my not totally unusual and submitted the above in error before I had tried to properly edit typos. On my moble so you're stuck with it folk :)

Anyway, "luckily" ( possibly mainly for you ) I had pretty much reached the end, although I would no doubt have found something more to say about in many ways a quite complex subject that certainly has much more to it than selected soundbites, no matter from what source.

Anyway, it seems remarkably readable.

And having beaten Muzza in the QF, Djoko gets a nice little WO into the final as Nishikori withdraws.